Good vs. Bad
How Does Beautiful Joe Depict the "Cruel" Vs the "Humane"? Does it Seem a Matter of Choice?
Beautiful Joe: An Autobiography (1893) encircles human-creature connections inside the defensive circle of middle class family life and depicts childrearing and pet-care as commonly constitutive. Saunders' canine life account relates the experiences of its eponymous creator, a manhandled puppy who is protected from a brutal milkman and embraced by the cherishing Morris family of Fairport, Maine (Walker). The Morrises' style of parenting epitomizes the coercive nurturance encapsulated in Richard Brodhead's understood idea of disciplinary closeness. Strongly reproachful of beating, Mrs. Morris controls the ethical still, small voices of her kids through a relentless eating regimen of "good nursing, great sustenance, and kind words" (Saunders 34). Pet-keeping coordinates flawlessly into Mrs. Morris' logic of childrearing, which she alludes to as "heart training." In a discussion with a family companion, Mrs. Morris portrays how pet-keeping has changed her "tediously, disgustingly childish" children into "the most honorable chaps in Fairport" (Saunders, pp. 39, 38).
The majority of the sensible grown-ups in Beautiful Joe embrace a sympathetic rationality of raising a child. Mrs. Morris' benevolent and shrewd sister-in-law, Mrs. Wood, oftentimes addresses her loved ones on the social need of a sympathetic instruction for youngsters. In a discussion with her niece, Mrs. Wood credits uncontrolled culpability to "absence of appropriate preparing" for the country's youth (Saunders, p. 145). "We're contemplating teaching the brain," she mourns, "and overlooking the absolute entirety" (Saunders, p. 145). To balance this predisposition, Mrs. Wood suggests that instructors slip a few "lessons of affection" in the middle of all the topography, history, and sentence structure (Saunders, p. 145).
Beautiful Joe focuses on the pliability of youngsters and the significance of humane socialization (Walker). He portrays his collection of memoirs, truth is told, as an endeavor to cultivate sympathy...
Maybe it will help a little on the off chance that I recount a story ... I think the more stories there are composed about stupid creatures, the better it will be for us" (Saunders, p. 14).
Joe's story underlines the suffering he endured in the hands of Jenkins; a malicious evil milkman. Cruelty towards animals was largely ignored because it was argued that animals lacked a language or feelings or even soul. Saunders, however, as she gives her animal narrator the voice, she renders him feelings too. The first person triggers a sympathetic outlook towards the puppy. The puppy is wounded both physically and psychologically. Joe endures repeated kicking while his mom is whipped until she bleeds. Jenkins also brutally kills Joe's siblings inadvertently, even as his mother watches the heinous acts. He goes on to cut off part of Joe's tail in a rage (Johnson). Advocates of treating animals humanely suggested that people who abused and mistreated animals also abused and mistreated other humans.
The argument is supported in Jenkins' escapades that are not just seen as abusing all the animals he interacts with, but his children and wife too. He is found to be a dangerous thief later. In a young man's response, Harry, to the attack by Jenkins on Joe, we can see that an intervention by a single person on behalf of a helpless dog can make a major difference. It is also shown that laws to protect Jenkins' animals and bring their torturers to account exist. These laws have been instituted by the society to protect animals against cruelty (Johnson). Joe's narrative raises a number of pertinent issues. The description portrays Morris' household as an ideal example of a good relationship between animals and humans. The novel also addresses the philosophy that informs tolerating cruelty towards animals and provides answers for questions therein; the human action that has countered the issue of animal cruelty as…
